


one last thing before you go

by Strawberry_Champagne



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bisexual Han Solo, Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fade to Black, Gay Luke Skywalker, M/M, Multiple Soulmates, Pansexual Lando Calrissian, soulmate tattoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29379228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberry_Champagne/pseuds/Strawberry_Champagne
Summary: Star Wars Soulmate Month 2021: Day 12, Soulmate’s last words written on skinWhen Han Solo gets his soulmate’s last words tattooed on his skin, the recurring nightmares about their future death finally stop. Through his life’s adventures and close calls, he discovers that there are many different kinds of love and that fate is more complicated than it appears.
Relationships: Lando Calrissian/Han Solo, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Luke Skywalker/Han Solo, Qi'ra/Han Solo
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20
Collections: Star Wars Soulmate Month 2021





	one last thing before you go

Han is old for the Fate Dream—none of the older scrumrats get the words etched into their skin by the White Worms, deemed not worth the ink or effort when they come of age, their continued nightmares a minor, acceptable discomfort. You could find a back-alley shop that will do the tattoo for cheap, but when you’re this low in status, the meager credits you keep from your jobs would go further to fill your belly for a few days or buy a new pair of gloves to keep you warm. The Head child might earn the privilege to have it done, but it’s hard to know for sure—traditionally, the words are placed in an area that can’t be seen, discreet, covered by clothes or hair. Most people don’t like to talk about the last thing that their soulmate is going to say before they die.

And so Han is eighteen and he still has the dream, not every night but often enough. He mutters in his sleep, Qi’ra says, tossing and turning on his cot. Sometimes he grinds his teeth. On waking, Han can’t describe what happens in any great detail. It feels floaty and unreal, even more so than a regular dream, a dark shadow being chased by light and an elderly voice of indeterminate gender, tortured and anguished. There’s only one word.

“ _Ben_ …” 

Han always wakes immediately after the word is spoken—that’s the other part of the Dream, inconvenient. It’s a person’s name, he’s pretty sure. There are a lot of different given names out there, but this is one he’s heard before, not the most popular but relatively common on the planets of the Galactic Core. But Han doesn’t know anyone with that name. Neither does Qi’ra, he thinks. Not yet.

Jabbat, the last Head, disappears. (Is disappeared.) Qi’ra’s loyalty is tested and rewarded, and Han takes a step back. She can shine bright enough for both of them, until they get their chance to fly among the stars. Not that Han is satisfied to merely bask in her light for long—she wouldn’t let him have her if he did. They scrabble and steal, jostle and negotiate.

“Where is it,” Han asks one night when Qi’ra is tucked up against his chest, both spent and blissful. She hums at him, like she doesn’t know what he means. Maybe she really doesn’t. “Your words. Did they let you get it?”

You’re not really supposed to ask other people about this—it’s not forbidden or illegal, exactly, but definitely frowned upon. See, there’s all kinds of implications with knowing what your own last words will be, when you’re relatively certain you’re with your match. It can drive a person insane, has done so many times over. They call it Fate Fever, this single-minded obsession with trying to prevent the circumstances in which you might say those exact words before your demise, in that order. Nothing ever works, not even removing the person’s means to speak them out loud. They say that fate always finds a way.

Han still asks, though. No one ever said he was a smart kid, even if he has luck to spare. There’s a part of him that’s still skeptical of the mysticism surrounding the whole thing, anyway. Even with the recurring dreams, it feels hokey, made-up, like those futures that you can get read to you in a dingy hovel for a few credits. But still. He asks.

“…Not yet,” Qi’ra says, after a moment. She cuddles in closer, pets at his chest a little. Her fingers rests against his skin, by his heart, like a promise. Han has a vague sense that she’s trying to distract him, and it’s working. He dips to kiss her, fierce and a little possessive. As if she were something he could possess, in this place.

“So you’re still dreaming,” he says after they separate. _About me_ , he doesn’t say, or dare to hope.

“Yes.” Qi’ra’s eyes are so big, darting here and there across Han’s face like she’s trying to memorize it. She traces down the side of his cheek with the back of a fingernail and he catches her hand in his own, turns to kiss her palm. They don’t have a lot of time here. They’ll be expected back to work soon, to earn their keep. To justify their existence. “And you?”

_Almost every night now_ , Han almost tells her. _Sometimes twice_. The older Han gets, the worse the itch for the word to rest somewhere permanent, maybe against his ribs.

“Sure,” he says. “You know how it is.”

* * *

Han’s not sure how he ended up at this party—it’s so far above his pay grade, it might as well be in another galaxy. Everyone’s dressed to the nines in tailored suits and sleek gowns, artificial smiles pasted on as they make small talk over their drinks. It makes Han’s skin crawl. They need to make a deal with Crimson Dawn to save their skin, though, and Han’s never been one to back down from a challenge. He can act like he belongs here, and no one will be the wiser. Confidence is everything. Han nabs a morsel from a passing tray, something covered in a bright orange sauce, and struggles to school his expression into something less _what in the kriff did I just put in my mouth._ (The sauce _burns_ ; he’s mildly alarmed that he may have scorched off several tastebuds. It’s fine.)

Beckett had said not to talk to anyone, and Han hadn’t planned to, really. But then someone touches his shoulder, and its _her_ and she’s real and alive, smiling at him, touching his face, right here with him in the flesh after all this time. Everything and everyone else falls away. Qi’ra looks so elegant—luxury suits her and Han wishes he had the words and time to tell her this. He’d rehearsed what he was going to say if he saw Qi’ra again so many times, but in these fantasies he was usually rescuing her from Lady Proxima, sweeping her off her feet and into their ship, escaping Corellia once and for all. Someone else got there first.

But that doesn’t matter now. There has always been that sour, sick worry in the back of Han’s mind that something terrible had happened to Qi’ra after he’d passed through those gates, when the guards pulled her back to the slums and whatever punishment waited for her there. They don’t look too kindly on defectors. It was wishful thinking to imagine she hadn’t been punished, but at least the price hadn’t been her life.

Han is so wrapped up in being stunned and grateful to see Qi’ra again that he almost doesn’t notice at first—but then his attention is drawn to her wrist and she moves to cover it, fingers curling anxiously just where her sleeve ends. Not before he can see it, though, the interlocking black arcs and half-circles in full view of anyone that cares to look. It’s like a gut punch. Han’s brows knit and he leans in toward her, murmuring under his breath.

“I knew it,” he says. “They’ve hurt you. I’ll—”

“Not here,” Qi’ra hisses, mouth in a tight, thin line. Beckett and Dryden Vos are deep in conversation on the other side of the room, negotiating the final details of how they’re going to make up their Coaxium failure to the syndicate. Vos flicks a look over at them, apparently sensing the mood shift—he didn’t get this high up without a keen eye for these kinds of things. His mouth curves up into a smile and he crosses to them.

“How incredible it is that you two know each other,” he says. “It truly is a small galaxy, after all.”

Qi’ra returns his smile mildly. Her hand falls away from where it grasped the opposite wrist, and the tattoo burns into Han’s vision, stark against her pale inner arm. Seeing her nude, here in public, would somehow be less shocking. His fingers itch to cover it, to scrub it away. Instead, he rubs absently at his own chest, where the word _Ben_ was inked during his brief career as an Imperial pilot.

Dryden Vos will pay for this, one way or another.

All through their mission the circle tattoo mocks Han, flashing up at him any time Qi’ra moves her hands or hooks a piece of hair behind her ears. The worst part is that everyone who sees it _knows_ it means she doesn’t have the Fate tattoo. The worst part is that she doesn’t seem to care. Han can’t read her anymore. Maybe he never could.

“Are you a slave,” he spits out, when he finally has her alone for once. “After this mission, I can rescue you. I’ll pay whatever they—“

“Han, _don’t_. I’m not a slave. I work for Vos. He—we have an arrangement. We both get what we need out of it.”

“But—” Traitorously, Han’s eyes dart to the mark on Qi’ra’s wrist. She doesn’t move to hide it, this time.

“Please don’t make me explain myself to you. I’ve made my choice. You know we’ve always done what it takes to survive.”

Han turns away, cursing under his breath. This seems like too steep a price.

“Han,” she says again, a little more gently. Watery around the edges. “It doesn’t matter. This is always what our Fates were—”

“ _No_. Fate can go to hell.”

Qi’ra flinches as if she’s been struck, but she reaches for Han as he gathers her into his arms, pressing every inch of her against himself as he kisses her, deep and searching. He looks down at her and smiles with a playful quirk to his lips that he doesn’t feel.

“I’ll never give up, you know. I’ll get us a ship and we’ll start our own enterprise. We get rid of that thing, and you can get your words back.”

Han isn’t actually sure it works that way. But he also isn’t sure it matters. Not when it’s Qi’ra.

She’s laughing now, light and musical, the best sound in the galaxy.

“Okay,” she says. “But first you’ll need that ship.”

* * *

“... _Shit_. Han!” Lando says in that obnoxious way of his, flattening out the _a_. (Pulling his pigtails, is what Han’s father would have called it.) “What are you still doing here? Taking the Falcon wasn’t good enough, you’ve got to start haunting my favorite local dive, too?”

“Didn’t take your ship,” says Han, taking a long drink out of the glass bottle of whatever alcoholic beverage he’d ordered this time. “Won it. Fair ‘n square.”

“Well, I don’t know about fair—” Lando backs up at whatever he sees in Han’s expression, both hands up. “Okay, okay. So you won. You got lucky, kid.”

Han scowls at him half-heartedly. “Not a kid.”

“Okay,” Lando says again, placating. He slides onto a stool next to Han, raises a finger and nods at the bartender. “I’d buy you a drink, but it looks like you’ve got that handled.”

Han can hear the smirk in his voice without having to turn and look at the other man, can’t decide if it’s judgmental or not. He’s too far gone to give a damn.

“You always buy drinks for people who take things that belong to you?”

Lando chuckles at this, low and warm. “Thought you said you didn’t take it. Anyway, the Falcon is her own lady.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Probably. Cheers.” Their drinks clink together, the crisp sound of glass connecting and rattling ice. Lando takes a sip, arches an eyebrow at Han over the rim. “Speaking of ladies, where’s yours?”

Han’s expression shutters.

“Ah. A touchy subject, I see. She betrayed you, eh?”

“How—”

“Han, Han.”

“It’s _Hahn,_ for the last— _”_

“Hey, I get it! Me, I probably fall in love five times a week. But you can’t let yourself be an easy mark.” Lando taps Han on the chest with his fingertips, twice, and Han bats his hand away lazily. “I saw through that girl the second she walked in the room.”

“No, you didn’t.” Another long drink, tilted toward the ceiling, eyes closed.

“Okay, no. I didn’t. Still figured it out before you did, though.”

Han can hear him biting back the “kid,” amending himself. That’s something. They still aren’t friends.

“Congratulations,” he says, but there’s no bite to it. No heat. He’s tired.

They drink in something like companionable silence for a minute, but Lando keeps jiggling his knee where he thinks Han can’t see it. He twirls the swizzle stick from his drink between his fingers like he’s practicing some sleight of hand—and considering the way that cards were literally up his sleeve at their sabacc game, he probably is.

“What do you want, Calrissian.” Han still doesn’t look directly at him. He feels like he’d enjoy that too much.

“Me?” Lando scoffs. “I don’t want anything. That’s the beauty of being at the top, baby.” He pops some kind of fruit garnish into his mouth and smirks around it. Han’s about to leave, he really is. He gestures that he’s ready to close out his tab.

“Hey, hey. I’ll take care of that. You can put it on my account, Jino.” The bartender nods and turns away. “Right. So, what’s next for Han Solo?”

“What, tonight? Or just in general.” Han’s not really sure why he’s still talking to this guy. Blame the alcohol. Or the fact that Lando pronounced his name correctly for once.

“Mm. Can’t it be both?”

“Might be different answers.”

Lando hums and tilts his head, seeming to consider this.

“I’ve got time.”

* * *

The thing is, Han’s basically sober by the time Lando has him backed up against the door of his apartment’s bedroom later that night. Which means he has nothing else to blame for the thigh pressed hard between his legs, lips hot against his neck, biting and licking a trail from his ear to the junction of his shoulder. Han hauls Lando up by the lapels and he goes willingly, laughing against his mouth. Doesn’t even grouse at him for man-handling his nice clothes.

He’s still wearing a cape though, which is ridiculous, and Han might growl something to this effect as he fumbles with the clasp.

“They’re dashing,” Lando says with a grin, and Han rolls his eyes. “What? It worked on you.”

“It’s definitely not the cape.”

“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”

Han needs him to stop talking before he has second thoughts (really third or fourth thoughts at this point), so he concentrates on accomplishing this mission. He’s pretty good with his hands, or so he’s been told. Certainly hasn’t had any complaints, at least.

After they’re both satisfied they catch their breath, legs thrown over each other, sprawled on the bed. Lando flops onto his back looking entirely too pleased with himself, and the movement reveals a pale, looping script down the side of one hip, following the arc of bone.

The ink is stark against his skin—Han almost reaches out to touch it, just stopping himself. That might be too brazen even for him. But Lando grabs his hand, traces the letters with Han’s finger without looking at it.

“ _Yes, anything,”_ he says, low and quiet. Han doesn’t know how to respond, but Lando just laughs. “Kind of kinky, right? It’s become a bit of a personal motto. Try anything once.”

Except death, of course. But neither of them is afraid of that.

* * *

Han’s a smuggler, not usually in the business of getting involved with people on the run from the Empire, but you know what they say about desperate times. When the old man approaches them in the Mos Eisley cantina, Chewbacca tells Han later that he felt something tug at the edges of his consciousness as he spoke, coaxing him to trust him and accept their credits—Han’s not sure what kind of dirty trick this guy is trying to pull, but Chewie manages to shake it off. Thinks the man may have smirked a little.

So—Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker. They’re an odd pair; Han thinks they might be related at first, but quickly determines that theirs is more of a mentoring, student-teacher kind of relationship. Apparently Obi-Wan killed an aggressive cantina patron with one of those Jedi sabers, which he starts training Luke to use. Han shakes his head from the other side of the lounge as the old man sets up a training droid that, predictably, stings the kid with low-powered blaster bolts when he tries to bat them away without sight.

And Luke _is_ a kid—impulsive, smart-mouthed, constantly touching things on Han’s ship without asking. It’s infuriating, barely worth the credits. He can find another way to pay off Jabba, something lower risk where he won’t end up with Imperial cruisers on his tail. (Chewbacca looks at Han sidelong and chuffs a laugh as he complains about this in the cockpit one evening, and the Wookiee can keep his snarky comments to himself, thank you _very_ much. Han was nothing like that when they met.)

It’s predictable, just typical, when they end up dragged into the Imperial base. While the little astromech droid Artoo pulls up schematics after the pair has a bizarrely fraught goodbye, Han notes idly that Luke doesn’t look half bad in the borrowed stormtrooper armor. Much less the wide-eyed farmboy.

“Where’d you dig up that old fossil?” he says instead.

Luke pulls a stormy face, instantly nineteen again. “Ben is a great man.”

“Yeah, great at getting us into trouble,” Han snipes back, but echoing in his skull is a chorus of _Ben, Ben, Ben._

It’s a common name, after all.

* * *

Luke and Leia pull Han into their orbits, a binary system, blue eyes and deep brown, watching him in corridors, from across the hangar. He’s finally going to leave, he _swears_ he is, until Luke almost gets himself killed again and Han is horrified to realize that he would have spent a night tucked into tauntaun guts, curled around his shivering form, if it would have kept him alive until the morning.

The kid’s a Commander now—still incredibly young to take on that kind of role, but that’s war for you. Luke’s even got the battle scars to prove it. Leia traces them with her fingers as she leans in for a kiss in the medbay, lingering, both of them looking at Han out of half-slitted eyes. Well, no one can ever say that he’s one to back down from a challenge.

If it’s a game they want to play, he’ll win, even if he’s not sure what the prize looks like at this point. It’s a welcome distraction from the tension in the Rebel base, the constant monitoring for Imperial transmissions; from Jabba’s bounty, hanging over his head always. (How many times has he said he was leaving to pay it off now? Han has lost track. It’s became a running joke, almost—a smirk in the corner of Luke’s smile, a hard glint in Leia’s eye, calling his bluff without saying a word.)

There’s an element of combat in the first kiss he shares with Leia: no quarter, no surrender, a reluctant meeting in the middle of the battlefield to negotiate their terms. Still, it’s honest. Direct. No one’s saying one thing and meaning another. She doesn’t make it easy, but there’s nothing false about it.

(Kissing Luke is like drinking sunlight. Han only gets this once, hip cocked against the side of Luke’s X-Wing just before they part ways on Hoth. He thinks it might burn him from the inside out, purifying, a supernova. This, he thinks, is not meant for thieves and scoundrels.)

There isn’t exactly a lot of time for intimacy in the retreat from the ice planet—they’re a bit preoccupied with running for their lives, dodging TIE fighters, shooting their way out of asteroid-dwelling space slug stomachs. Something inevitable simmers below the surface, though. A feeling of waiting, of not-yet-but-soon. Han and Leia brush past each other in the Falcon’s cramped living space, touch casually but with purpose. There’s a tenderness that wasn’t there before, when they were resisting their pull to each other.

Han’s no slouch at the stick, but he still gives the old lady credit where it’s due—this beautiful rust-bucket still has some fight in her yet. Without all the alterations that Han and Chewie made to the Falcon, they might not have had those handful of seconds, that last boost of power that they needed to escape by the skin of their teeth.

While Han’s doling out credit, he begrudgingly gives some to Lando Calrissian, as well. The Millennium Falcon had already been a hell of a ship when he’d won her, already modified well past the normal specs of the light freighter’s model. (Lando _and_ his L3 pilot droid, Han amends. When he’d offered to transfer her to Lando’s other, less exceptional ship, he thought the man might have been about to pass out from stunned gratitude.)

But speaking of Calrissian—Han hasn’t thought about him in a while, not since that last job they’d worked together went sideways in a truly catastrophic manner. It wasn’t Han’s fault, and Lando knew that… he thinks. At any rate, it has been a long time since then, and the Rebels are running out of safe harbors. Han is sure that Lando would welcome them into Cloud City with open arms.

When they arrive, Lando and his retinue are standing at the end of the docking platform, arms crossed, unreadable.

* * *

It’s almost serendipitous when Threepio wanders off and Chewbacca volunteers to go find him. Leia is pacing the living area of the guest quarters that were prepared for them, every so often trailing her fingers over an expensive-looking vase or abstract art piece. She’s clearly rattled, and so is Han if he’s being honest. He’d thought Lando was about to punch him—for a weightless, heart-stopping second imagines being pushed off the ledge into the crushing depths of the gas giant. But it’s like he thought. Lando understands; they’re still friends. He flirts extravagantly with Leia just to piss Han off and winks at him over her shoulder. They catch up like no time has passed at all.

Now Han’s alone with Leia, in the nicest rooms he’s seen in years. They have a few hours until they’re expected for an early formal dinner, and. they’re. alone. He arrests Leia’s latest circuit of the room by catching her around the waist—at first she makes a half-hearted move to extricate herself, almost a reflex. Then she melts against him.

“Hey,” he says. “We’re safe now. Relax.”

“I don’t know, Han,” she says, chin tilted up, mouth set into a worried line. “I have a bad feeling—“

He won’t let her speak it into existence. Lowers his head to kiss her the way he’s wanted to for weeks, for years. There’s no one to interrupt them, this time. One-handed, not looking back at it, Han sets the door to locked and backs Leia into the lushly decorated bedroom without breaking the kiss.

Han only looks again when they’re completely bare to each other, entangled in passion. Can’t stop himself from reading the script that flows in deep black ink just above Leia’s left breast, above her heart.

“ _Yes, anything_ ,” it reads.

Well, shit.

(Unrequited soulmates exist—of course they do, the universe couldn’t match every person with another neatly, two-by-two like some hokey children’s story. There would be spares, some people with more than one soulmate, the rare person with none. Perhaps the most tragic, some have soulmates who are matched with someone else entirely. Not incredibly common, but it does happen.

On some unspoken agreement, neither Han nor Leia comment on the ink they both can see. It would be pointless to do so—Fate has brought them together, so maybe they’re marked with each other’s final words. It makes little difference in the immediate future. There’s not really a way to know for certain until that moment happens.

Usually.)

* * *

Seeing the infamous Darth Vader at the end of the banquet hall’s long table is like a solid punch to the gut—it sucks all of the air out of Han’s lungs. His presence there is _wrong_ in a way that is difficult to quantify, a sudden sickness, an unwelcome house guest. Chaos erupts. Blaster bolts fall out of the air, diverted harmlessly at a flick of the Imperial dark lord’s wrist, night-black cape hanging down almost motionless like he isn’t affected by anything as mundane as physics. Han twists his neck to catch Lando’s eye as they’re funneled back out of the room flanked by armored guards, and the man doesn’t even flinch or feel enough shame to look away. 

“I had no choice,” he says, as if that makes anything better. “They arrived just before you did.”

And what can Han even say to that? _You always have a choice_? Pointless moralizing. Not his style. _Despite everything, I still trusted you?_ Too sentimental. He says nothing and lets that speak for itself.

The guards lead Han to a room that’s been set up for his interrogation, but before the doors can slide open, Lando catches him at his elbow, nodding to the closest guard, who seems to react to his confident presence by backing off a few steps.

“I know you won’t tell them anything about your Rebellion,” he says low and urgently, pointedly. Something roils in Han’s stomach despite the fact that they never got their promised evening meal. “I tried to tell them that. Some people will do _anything_ to make it stop, but not Han Solo.”

Lando squeezes his upper arm once, lets him go. It would be a strange, inane thing to say, this late in the game, especially when he was the one who agreed to turn Han in. Except for the words on his skin, brushing against Han’s hip through layers of fabric as he turns on his heel to walk away.

They strap Han in gracelessly, tighten at the wrists until he can’t feel his fingers. Instruments gleam, dark and menacing, just inches from his face as he’s lowered toward them. Lando must have made a deal to spare Leia and Chewbacca from harm, at least. It’s a small mercy. The last coherent thought that Han has is to wonder what this cost Calrissian; the betrayal on their last job must have cut deeper than he knew. But it’s too late for regrets.

The pain begins, unrelenting.

* * *

“I know,” Han says, and it isn’t meant to be smug or arrogant, despite the way he smirks at Leia across the carbon-freezing chamber. It’s a statement of fact, permanent and immovable. Her eyes widen and he memorizes her face, exactly how it looks right now, still lovely and strong even in its terror. Everything unspoken passes between them in that last look, crackling and humming like a force field. There’s no one else in the galaxy at that moment—not Chewbacca, who he can hear roaring distantly, not Lando still negotiating on his behalf with increasing desperation. Certainly not Vader’s looming spectre, or the bounty hunter with colorful armor waiting silently to deliver Han to Jabba’s palace dead or alive, a frozen and contorted hunting trophy. This facility is experimental, after all—untested for these purposes.

But then they’re lowering him on the platform, cold gasses hissing around him, and “I know” are not his words. At least, Han thinks in the split second before he’s enveloped, this isn’t how he dies.

There really isn’t an awareness of the intervening time, just a muzzy feeling that he’s been somewhere like a dreamless sleep for a long time. The world crashes back in, too loud, too much. Han’s limbs won’t cooperate, his stomach threatens to rebel. He can’t see. He… can’t see. But there’s arms around him, familiar somehow, guiding him through the panic and disorientation. A distorted voice is replaced by the one he’d hoped to hear most—Leia kisses his sweat-drenched face, a princess rescuing him from slumber.

It doesn’t last. The next sound that Han hears just moments later is a chorus of booming, shrieking, cackling laughter. 

In the cell they’re both shoved into, Chewie tells Han that Lando is undercover as a palace guard, for what little good that has done for them so far. Han hates the trickle of doubt he can’t quite shake—wondering if Calrissian’s motivation to make amends outweighs his instinct for self-preservation. Wonders if, Fate words or no, the man can ever love someone else quite as much as he loves himself.

Not being able to see is incredibly disorienting, harder to get used to even than the newborn-animal weakness for which he at least has a point of reference. Han has stumbled out of bed tripping over his own limbs after more than a few wild nights, but never had to navigate without one of his senses like this, the world a dark smear of blurry shapes melting together. He’s never had to shoot a thrashing, serpentine blur off of a vaguely Lando-shaped blur while hanging upside down like a mynock. There’s a first time for everything.

(Luke has returned from _wherever_ , apparently a Jedi now, something Han has grudgingly started admitting might be a real thing that someone can be. He’s radiating a strange, calm confidence that Han would love to have time to examine in a moment where they’re not quite so dangling-over-a-sarlacc-pit getting shot at.

“I used to live here, you know,” Luke says on the skiff, carrying the weight of a sea of shifting sand.

“You’re gonna die here, you know. Convenient,” Han quips back, though he’s certain of no such thing. No one dies, it turns out. Well, except Jabba. And Boba Fett, probably. Dead or digesting. Before the dust storm settles, Luke is gone.)

* * *

Han watches the Millennium Falcon disappear into the distance behind him with no small amount of trepidation, sour in his stomach. When he’d asked Lando to bring her back without a scratch, Calrissian— _General_ Calrissian—had given him a look that said ‘you idiot, she was mine first.’ For a wild moment, Han wonders if his words would even be etched onto the other man if he hadn’t won his beloved ship, if somehow that one sabacc match didn’t bind their Fates together. If things could even work that way. The universe is a mysterious place.

Explosions in the sky above the moon of Endor, blooming like a bruise. Han tilts his chin toward the sky and forces himself to watch the battle’s ending above the tall evergreens. There’s no way they made it out in time. He wonders if there’s someone out there in the galaxy who knows what Lando said, just before the end.

Leia loops her arms around Han’s neck and pulls him in close, her long wavy hair tickling his neck. She laughs and laughs as if she can’t help herself, overcome with relief. And Han smirks down at her, holds her, surrounded by celebration that continues into the night. The explosions are mirrored by fireworks, red and purple and gold.

Han’s been drinking a good while when the stragglers from the battle come in, long enough that he thinks he might be hallucinating when he hears “Han, old buddy” behind him, like he’s being haunted already. He always thought that ghosts needed a little time to settle in. But he turns around and nearly drops his glass of whatever this is that Ewoks drink, which could definitely be psychotropic for all he knows.

Han doesn’t think his imagination is good enough to conjure up the precise sensation of someone gripping his forearms, though. Lando grins at him, looking weary but whole.

“You’re alive,” he says, which, obviously.

“Don’t sound so surprised about it,” Lando chides, laughing.

“And the Falcon?” Han pretends not to have a lump in his throat.

“I keep my promises,” he answers smoothly, followed by a significant pause. “Well. A few scorch marks, but nothing a new coat of paint won’t fix. It’ll be on me, love.”

It’s casual and not. He calls everyone these sorts of things.

“Damn right,” says Han. He clears his throat, claps Lando on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

He doesn’t look to see if Lando watches him go.

(Luke stands in a forest clearing, surrounded by flickering shadow, and stares into the flames. Han leaves him be – when he’d seen him step out of his X-Wing, tug off his helmet and tuck it under his arm, his eyes had looked haunted, red-rimmed. This seems like something he needs to do alone.)

* * *

“How about Bail? That’s a perfectly fine… a wonderful name. Starts with the same letter and everything.”

Leia gives Han a _look_ , the one that says she’s not budging, that she sees right through him.

“Han. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Ben Kenobi was a great man, a hero of the Rebellion, my mentor and friend. He saved my life. Luke’s, too. I don’t want to name our child after my adoptive father and open that wound every time I say his name. Please…”

“I don’t want to have death be on my mind every time _I_ say his name—”

“They’re not _your_ words—“

“And that’s worse! You don’t see how that’s worse?”

“Don’t get worked up into a Fate Fever over this, flyboy.”

And that settles it. Han lets his mouth snap shut, flexes a muscle at his jaw. He goes outside to get some air, and as he paces, the obnoxious thing is that he knows Leia is right. She might end up saying their son’s name with her last breath, but not naming him that wouldn’t prevent it from happening. If anything, it would give the words more context. A moebius strip of fateful events—where does it begin, and where does it end?

Ben Solo. It does have a nice ring to it.

* * *

They have some peaceful years, in a relative sense. Conflicts, sure, but not galactic ones. No planet-killing weapons. That’s a nice change of pace.

Luke disappears off and on for a while, after Endor. He comes back for good to begin Ben’s training, a few years after he’s born. Han tries not to overreact when his kid starts floating his toys all over the place, moving them with his kriffing _mind_ or however the Force actually works. (In his updates from the well-hidden Jedi Temple, Luke says that Ben takes to his lessons with a surprising intensity—but then, he’s always kind of been a serious child. Han’s not sure where he gets it. Certainly not from him.)

It all falls apart, of course. Suddenly and spectacularly, when no one is watching. They all should have been watching.

Han’s awakened by an insistent chiming, rubs his hands over his face in bleary confusion as he stumbles to the door. It’s the middle of the night in Theron’s capital, and he has stayed up late finalizing some details for a race that’s now only weeks away, falling into bed only when he can’t keep his eyes open any longer. He’s not as young as he used to be.

The door slides open to reveal just about the last person he expects, and he looks like death itself.

“Luke? Get inside, you’re gonna freeze out here—didn’t you bring anything warmer than that poncho?”

Han’s good-natured scolding is pulled up short when he sees Luke’s face. Not just the expression, which is devastating enough on its own. There’s a fine web of pink raised lines on his jaw, across his cheek, shiny and half-healed like he’s stopped halfway through a regiment of bacta, disappearing down under his collar.

“You’re hurt.” Han pulls him by the arm further inside his home, settles him into a chair in the front lounge area. “What’s going on?”

Luke shudders, full-bodied and visceral. “Han,” he says, and his voice breaks with emotion.

The story comes out in fits and starts as Han clumsily prepares a hot beverage to warm Luke up—as details emerge, this task is forgotten. A kettle screams behind him, a whistling keen that neither of them pays any mind. It feels appropriate for this kind of news.

Visions of darkness. A split-second of weakness at the worst possible moment. Confusion, then rage. Destruction and fire. Luke, left for dead, bleeding and broken under a pile of rubble.

“I woke up to the Temple burning,” Luke whispers, staring out at nothing. Han hadn’t turned any lights on, so they’re half in shadow. This, too, feels appropriate. “I think they’re all dead. Or. They might as well be, if anyone followed him.”

He seems remarkably calm about it all, but it might just be the shock. (Han thinks he might be in shock himself. He doesn’t know what to say, feels frozen to the spot.)

“It’s my fault.”

Han’s head snaps up at that.

“It is. Don’t even try to argue, I _know_ you. I was… arrogant. Thought I could do what the Jedi could not, with my father.”

“Luke—“

“I failed.”

The venom in that phrase, the resigned self-loathing, radiates off of Luke like waves. It’s starting to sink in for Han that Ben has fallen prey to something dark and malevolent, that something of who he was before has died. He clenches his fist, feeling like he needs to punch something. To fly, as fast as he can.

“I should have known,” he hears himself saying, rough with emotion. “I should have sensed something was wrong, somehow. He’s my _son_.”

“No.” Luke shakes his head, jaw tight. “That was my job. You trusted me, and I failed you.”

He stands, and Han watches him helplessly.

“I’m leaving,” he says. “For good this time. I found a compass that I think will lead me to where this all began, and I’m going to make sure it ends there.”

Luke’s declaration is cryptic and ominous, and Han doesn’t like it one bit. He stands when Luke does, grabs at his shoulder when he starts to turn away. Pulls him in, like if he can keep him close they won’t ever have to face what comes next. Whether either of them is wracked with sobs, whether they stand there wrapped around each other with hot tears rolling silently into shirt collars, is counsel they keep for themselves. It’s no one’s business but their own.

* * *

A soulmate is not a guarantee. It’s not a ticket to forever, does not absolve anyone of doing the work, does not prevent hurt or betrayal or extenuating circumstances. Han sometimes wonders what the point of it is, then—but maybe the bond itself is enough. Leia will always be someone he loves fiercely, who he will protect to his last breath.

They barely live together, by the end. This doesn’t make the separation any less painful, especially as colored as it is by the devastating loss of their son as they knew him. There are rumblings of a resurgence of Imperial sympathies, growing each year—Han had thought, perhaps naively, that this was a battle they had won, a foe vanquished. That they wouldn’t have to do this all over again so soon. He’s tired.

Maybe that’s why he ends up taking jobs from Maz again, staying out of galactic politics for as long as he can. He knows he’ll get dragged in again eventually—it’s just how his life works. But for now it’s a welcome distraction, transporting exotic cargo and dodging the crime syndicates, just like the old days. (Han hesitates to call them “good.”)

“Got something special for you two this time,” Maz says with a grin, eyes shining behind her goggles, as soon as she has Han and Chewie alone in her castle’s treasure room. She presses a metal instrument into Han’s open hands and then turns away, rummaging through boxes while humming a nameless tune to herself. He turns the thing over to look at it from different angles, brow creasing, and hasn’t the slightest idea what it might be. Chewie grunts and shrugs, shaking his shaggy head.

“It’s ancient Jedi make,” says Maz, who has materialized at Han’s side again without his noticing. He only jumps a little. “Here—turn it on. It’s a map!”

“Of course, a map. I knew that.” Han rolls his eyes a little while Maz fiddles with a switch on the side. A holoprojection materializes above one end of the device. Some kind of star chart. “So, what am I looking at here?”

Maz just looks at him, nonplussed, muttering something under her breath before she answers. “It’s a Jedi map, Solo. What would a Jedi need to find?”

“Uh. Jedi things.”

“ _Precisely_. You get it.” She’s smiling again, pleased. And Han definitely doesn’t ‘get’ anything… unless. He stares off into blank space, locked into realization.

“Chewie, get the ship ready,” Han says, pocketing the map. Maz just cackles up at him.

* * *

At first, Han thinks he must have read the star chart wrong. There’s no land here, only a sphere of endless blue and grey, smooth and featureless. It’s only when his ship is nearly skimming the waves that he starts to be able to pick out the scattered archipelagos, their craggy coasts obscured by the spray. In such an unforgiving landscape, doubt creeps in that he’ll find what he’s hoping to, here. Nothing but lonely sea creatures at the edge of the galaxy.

One of the largest islands has structures, though—signs of civilization, or what passes for it on this planet. No high-tech industrial buildings, no electricity, only what looks like domes made of large, rough stones stacked on top of each other. When they land, the ship is surrounded by a ring of flightless birds, dozens of the blinking, big-eyed creatures. Chewie growls a warning at the end of the ramp and they part, hopping away with a chorus of squeaks, then quickly close ranks behind them. Several follow Han and Chewbacca as they pick their way up a steep path of stone steps to a clearing at the island’s peak, where most of the structures have been built.

“Shoo,” says Han, bending down to nudge a bird-creature clinging against his leg. The thing won’t budge more than a few inches no matter what he does. Chewie would normally be laughing at him, but he’s dealing with his own unwelcome entourage. “Now, listen here. Would you just—“

“Han?”

Luke is framed by an arched doorway, one hand braced against the curving stone. His earth-tone robes look lived in, not ragged or frayed but somehow a part of the landscape. He pushes his hood back and steps into the light. They stare at each other for a long moment—Luke’s brow is furrowed, as if he isn’t quite sure that what he’s seeing is real.

“How did you even find me?” he finally says. “I went to a lot of trouble to make sure no one could, you know.”

“Hey, it’s me,” says Han, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a smirk. It’s not really an answer, but something in Luke’s stance relaxes. There’s a hint of laughter in his blue eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll get the real story out of you eventually,” he says gruffly, stepping forward to pull Han into a tight embrace. Suddenly he isn’t sure what to do with his hands; they hover around Luke’s shoulders, slide down to grip the back of his robes. He smells like the sea, salt-sharp, bracing.

“Come inside, Han” he says, and Han looks back to find that Chewbacca is nowhere to be found. Back to the ship, most likely. They know each other well after all these years, can read a situation and make their plans without always needing to discuss it out loud. (Han often thought that if platonic soulmates were a thing that existed… well, it doesn’t matter if they have no words to inscribe on their skin. They know what they are to each other.)

The hut is small but surprisingly homey: a low table, a hearth with a kettle, shelves of colorful artifacts and mementos, a bed with blankets unmade. Luke sits cross-legged on the floor and invites Han to do the same.

“I’m sorry,” Han feels compelled to say. “I know you’re out here to be… by yourself. Me being here throws a spanner in that.”

Out here like some kind of penance. Like he has to take the weight of the galaxy’s fate on his shoulders. Han doesn’t say these things; he doesn’t need to. Luke smiles, tight and rueful.

“Just… don’t tell Leia that I’m here. Promise me that much, Han.”

“I promise, yes. Anything,” Han says without thinking, and Luke freezes, looking stricken. “What?”

Luke only shakes his head, color returning slowly where the blood has drained. A creeping suspicion dawns—Han’s often been accused of being slow on the uptake, but that reaction was… well, it was something, alright.

“Luke,” he says, and when the other man looks up at him, Han reaches out to slide a hand around the back of Luke’s neck. Leans in, crushes their lips together, waits from him to move—and Luke responds, blooms beneath him. They fall into each other like an inevitability, like a long-awaited continuation.

Han finds his words etched like a secret in the dip of Luke’s pelvis, the ink small and a little crooked as if done by an inexperienced, shaking hand, and he laughs until he runs out of breath.

(“Lando has them too, you know.”

“I can’t say that I’m surprised. The two of you…”

“Now, hold on. Him, sure, but _m_ _e_?”

“Han…”

“You sound just like your sister when you do that.”

“Ha. We _are_ twins, you know.”

“Believe me, I know. Explains a lot, actually. Confused the hell out of me before I figured that out, though.”

“Me too.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Anyway, it’s alright with me if you’re in love with him, too.”

“I’m not in _lo_ —hey, c’mere.”)

* * *

_Han has finally found him—his son, a man grown and standing in the flesh before him, face bare of that grotesque black helmet. Ben’s face is wracked with anguish, teetering on the edge of epiphany. Han knows his little boy is somewhere in there, if only he’d reach out. He’ll pull him back from the precipice, no matter what it takes._

_“I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it,” he is saying. “Will you help me?”_

_“Yes, anything,” Han says, and in that instant he knows that his son is lost._ _His heart breaks before the lightsaber even ignites._

* * *

_The sun is setting, melting orange and pink into the rippling waves of Ahch-To, and Luke is tired. He knows he has over-extended himself, feels the Force pull at him, an unraveling. It was necessary, to save the ones that he loves, to help the Resistance take that first step toward freeing the galaxy from the forces of darkness once again. The rest is up to them._

_He feels himself fading and wonders where he will go, after. The Jedi texts touch upon it, but they’re vague, speculative. No one can come back and let them know what they found, after all._

_It’s Obi-Wan who guides him through—of course it is. He smiles benevolently, with a hint of mischief, as he reaches out his hand._

_“Ben…” Luke says. They cross over into a wider world._

* * *

_Leia dreams._

_She has a beautiful son, perfect in every way—strong in the Force, like his uncle, like his grandfather. Stubborn, challenging like his father and herself. So much potential. So much hope._

_She dreams he grows up to lead the Jedi. That he finds his place, finds his purpose. Finds love._

_There’s something wrong, an overhanging shadow, but she doesn’t let this touch her. The path has diverged. This could have been his destiny._

_Somewhere there’s a battle. The snap and hiss of lightsabers. A matched pair, each struggling to prevail. A turning point, another road that leads to darkness._

_“Ben…” she says, as breath leaves her. He is loved._

* * *

_If someone had told Landonis Balthazar Calrissian that he would die an old man, in a med-center, surrounded by his family, he would have said they were out of their minds. After all of his adventures and brushes with death, it turns out he really was the respectable one._

_Somewhere, he can feel someone squeezing his hand. One of his daughters, he thinks. He tries to remember the details of the present, to stay lucid, but they fall through his fingers like grains of sand. He’s glad that they are there with him, at the end._

_Lando’s mind goes elsewhere. It flies through his life like a holovid, all the greatest hits. The women, the men, everyone in between and beyond, the stories that no one would believe had absolutely happened to old Lando, he swears on the Falcon, wherever she is. Scrap, maybe. He hates to think it. She’ll always be his lady; the one that got away._

_Oh. But there he is, looking as handsome as the day they met. Hands tucked into his pockets, smirking like a devil._

_“Han, you old pirate,” Lando says, his brown eyes dancing with life. “Where have you been?”_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed – if you did, kudos and comments are always cherished and appreciated. :) Thanks for reading!


End file.
